Autumn Sonata

Last night I was watching a 1978 film called Autumn Sonata, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The story revolves around a woman named Eva (played by Liv Ullmann) who lives in Norway with her husband Viktor (Halvar Bjork), and her severely ill sister Helena (Lena Nyman). When Eva and Helena's mother, Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) a famous concert pianist, comes to stay with them it's not long before the tensions between the two of them reach boiling point. The main problem being that Charlotte abandoned her family seven years previously to pursue her career. It's an unremittingly bleak and intense drama. It was the last major film that Ingrid Bergman ever made, and she does give a really great performance in a role that had echoes with her own personal life (in the fifties she controversially left her family in the USA for Italian film-director Roberto Rosellini a move which pretty much ended her Hollywood career). Apparently though, on set the two Bergmans hated each other. Like many of the Ingmar Bergman films it is really well-made and very well-acted, but very gloomy.

It was another very quiet day at work, which was pretty busy, but not much really interesting was happening. I left at around six and bought a fish supper on my way home, which was quite nice.